Making a Point

Well, yesterday my hubby finally went and got his first shot (Hep A/Hep B combo). He had been harrassing me about not getting mine "because I was scared". Well, look who got thiers first! Who went and got theirs after his wife got hers? Just trying to make a point.

Authentication

Today I received our 12 documents in the mail Authenticated! So now they are done and ready to go to China. I am still waiting for our approval of our I800A. We are now day 57. Once I get this, I will have to have a copy of it Certified and then Authenticated. Then we can send our papers off to China! Slowly but surely we are getting there. Actually, this process has gone really smoothly. It has definately not been as bad as I thought that it would be. Yes, I do realize that I am not done yet. I also realize that the hardest part is yet to come...waiting to find our little girl.

Update: I have been going from the date that I mailed our I800A in as the date that I am counting from. It should be from the 10th of December instead of from the 3rd of December, so we have been waiting 50 days, not 57. Oh well, what's a week?!?

My First Shot in a Series of 3

I just got back from getting my first Hep A/Hep B combination shot. I have to get one next month and then one five months after that. It was not as bad as I thought (and those who know me know that I HATE shots). Getting my baby girl from China is definately a good motivator to get my shots. Two more to go!

I had a very nice lady, whom I do not know, email me from our adoption web site www.waitingforashlyn.com to tell me that she wanted to send me a square for Ashlyn's quilt. I was so blessed by this. No one has sent us a square for my baby's quilt yet (hint hint). So, hopefully I will start to get some pieces in the mail so that I can make her quilt for her before she gets home. You know I love you all!

Also~ we are day 54 in our wait for approval for our I800A! Some people have been getting their approval in 68 days! Hopefully we will have it in the next two weeks and then we can send our dossier to China sometime in March! Wouldn't that be amazing!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! That means Happy New Year in Mandarin. Today is Chinese New Year and this is the biggest holiday for China. They all get together with family and celebrate the coming year. This year is the year of the Ox. The ox is considered a hard working animal so they feel that if you work hard you will prosper.

On another note... I am desperately missing my Ashlyn. This weekend has been the hardest for me yet. I guess with Chinese New Year coming up and her not home celebrating it with us, has been a bit tough for me. Our family is just not complete without her. We talk about her everyday. She is very much a part of this family. The kids pray for her everyday "because she is not home where she belongs". Jordan is even missing her so much now that he is asking to go to China with us because he just wants to hold his baby sister. So needless to say it is hard on ALL of us...well, except Noah, who keeps telling me that he is the baby and he likes babies, but when I ask him if mommy is going to bring a baby home he tells me "no". He then explained "I the baby". So besides Noah, our hearts are longing for this baby girl who we have not even seen. That love could only be from our God!

Happy Chinese New Year, and God bless!

Approval Soon?

Today on one of my Yahoo groups someone got their USCIS aproval in 77 days! That is so exciting! That means ours could be very soon. I am finishing up our Dossier right now so that when the approval comes we can finish this process.

LOTS of Paper!

Today I am printing copies of ALL of the paperwork we have done so far. Three copies of everything to be exact. That is ALOT of paper! I have literally locked myself in my office to do this. I am getting our papers ready to be mailed out today to be Authenticated. I realized that I should also make the copies for the Dossier now too. And of course, I always make a copy for myself. My little desk printer is chugging along. It is really exciting because we are almost done with our paperwork part of the process. After talking to my agency today it seems that USCIS has sped up too and it will not take the 120 days now. (We are on day 48) She said that approvals are coming quick now. That will be one of the last pieces to this puzzle. We are very excited! Now all we need is our referral!

Fingerprints

Yesterday we had our fingerprint appointment and all went well. I talked with our agency yesterday and we are hoping that our I800A will be processed faster than the 120 days. We are on day 42. She said that a couple had come back at around the 90 mark. That would be nice. That would mean that we were half way there. Again, God's timing is perfect, so we will wait on Him.

Certification and Fingerprint Update

Yesterday our twelve documents came back certified. Now I will need to send them off to be authenticated. We also have a new date for our fingerprint appointment. So we are still moving forward, just not much more I can do at this end. Really we are waiting for the I800A to be approved. I could go and get my Hepatitis A and B shot started, but, yes, I am a chicken and I hate shots. Donny says I need to stop procrastinating, yet he has not gotten his first one either! We need three over the next six months...YIPEE!

Fingerprints

Today in the mail we also received paperwork to get our fingerprints done for our I800A. The scheduled us for the Saturday morning that we are leaving to go to North Carolina. So needless to say, I have to reschedule.

Certification Already?

Not really... today I received the package in the mail from Certification. I was really excited that it had been so quick. Well, turns out that they sent everything back because I sent them too much money. Their web site gave misleading information on some of its fees. So now I have to go to the post office and do it all over again. Maybe I will just wait until everyone is done mailing things for Christmas!

Same Blog...New Look

Don't be alarmed, you are at the right place. I just changed the look of the blog. Do you like?

Next...Certification

This afternoon I sent 12 notarized documents express mail to be Certified by the Department of State. I will need to get one more document Certified, but I went ahead and sent out what I had. After these documents come back I will need to send them out to be Authenticated. We are day 6 into the 120 day wait for the I800A application to be approved.

Our I800A is out the Door!

I did not know that I would be this excited, but I am! Today we received our notarized homestudy in the mail. I got all of our I800A papers together and our BIG certified check and headed to the post office. I was anxious/excited as I was standing in line to express mail our envelope. And then, off it went, and it was finally done. This is so exciting! Another big part of this paper chase process is done. Now I can get together all of our notarized papers and send them off to the state to be certified. I will probably get to that next week sometime. Thank you all for your many prayers for our family.

Our Homestudy has been Approved!

I just got back from Thanksgiving with our family in North Carolina. I was going through my back log of emails and there it was, an email from my adoption agency. Our homestudy was approved on Tuesday! Praise God! What a great gift and something more to be thankful for! We should be getting our papers in the mail this week and I will be sending out my I800A application as soon as I get them. On to the next big step in our adoption process. I will fill you in soon...

The Verse that started it all...

I felt led to post the verse that God led me to back in January of this year. I was praying for direction on whether or not the decision to adopt was right for our family. This is what He showed me. "I will stand upon my post of observation and station myself on the tower, and watch to see what He will say within me and what answer I will make. And the Lord answered me and said, "Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may read it as he hastens by. For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end, it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day." --Habakkuk 2:1-3 Thank You, Lord that You know the appointed day!

Almost Here

Well, I have spoken with our adoption agency and it looks like we should be getting our notarized home study sometime the first week of December. So I am going to spend some time today getting everything together that I will need to send off with our I800A application. That way when the homestudy gets here I can just Fed Ex it that day. It is taking them 120 days to process the I800A application. We will pray for a shorter time. Thanks so much for lifting our family in prayer!

Nothing New

Well, it has been awhile since we have heard anything. Our homestudy is still being reviewed by our agency. As soon as we get the ok from them we can apply for our I800A. Hopefully we will hear something this week.

A Blessing to my Heart

We have a vase in the kitchen, that the kids have put there, to collect money for their new baby sister's adoption. Yes, I too thought that was a very sweet gesture on their part. It has been sitting on the counter since June. No one has put money in it except my three children. It is now half full with change. When my brother visited a week ago he asked me how much was in the vase. I told him that I had never counted it. My brother and I sat on the floor and we were shocked when we found that the kids had put $60 plus dollars of their money into the "fund". What an amazing blessing that was to my heart! My children do not get much allowance, Lianna and Gabriel get $8 a week between them and Jordan is paid $40 a month for his job. They only keep seventy percent of that to spend. They all have contributed unselfishly to "bring their sister home". I am extremely proud of my children. They amaze me everyday!

Homestudy Update

Our social worker told me the home study was all written up, she is just waiting for clearance from DCF (child abuse registry). Once that document comes back she can put the date on the homestudy, notarize it and send it to us. Then we can Fed Ex our I800A application to Immigrations - Homeland Security with some other documents they need to determine whether we can bring our daughter home. With this documentation she will be a US citizen the moment we land in the United States.

After we get our approval from Immigrations, the next step is to send all of our documents to China. All of these documents have to be notarized, certified, and authinticated. This is why it takes about six months for this whole process. We are getting there. God's timing is perfect, and everything will come together when it is suppose to. We are very excited!

In addition....Donny's very first passport came today! See, I am NOT the only one who didn't have one!

My First Passport!

Today my very first passport EVER came in the mail! I feel like such a big girl! Laugh, but it's true. And, yes, I do travel...just not out of the states.